Friday, September 19, 2014

Four Dead in Ohio Apple Store iPhone 6 Rampage

CLEVELAND—(TYDN) As many as four people were killed and dozens injured early Friday at an Apple retail store here when inventory of iPhones ran out and opening-day sales came to an abrupt halt—setting off rioting, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

Firefighters were responding to a five-alarm fire, allegedly set with a Molotov cocktail thrown from the rampaging crowd. The entire Apple retail store was consumed by fire, witnesses told TheYellowDailyNews. SWAT teams and the US National Guard were rushing to the scene to quell the melee. All the while, thousands of would-be iPhone purchasers were clashing with each other, Apple sales clerks and with baton-wielding police.

Photo: Remo Cassella/TYDN
It was the worst violence involving a new Apple product following the 2012 opening-day sales mob in which 5 people were killed at an Apple retail outlet in San Francisco that had run out of iPads.

Witnesses to the Cleveland disaster said things were running smoothly when Apple opened its downtown retail store's doors at an unusually early time of 6 a.m. But at about 6:30 a.m., supplies of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus had dried up, leaving a throng of angry consumers without Apple's newest product.

"It was kinda like a cross between a Somali food distribution center and the Los Angeles rights," witness Delphia Melfstein said in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews.

Melfstein, who was airlifted to a local hospital for smoke inhalation, said she saw a mob leap the sales counter and began assaulting Apple store clerks and demanding Apple sell them iPhones.

"But then there was all this smoke and fire," Melfstein said, "and everybody just ran."


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